A Sound In The Night
by Katty008
Summary: Would Conan rely on a ghost to help him solve his cases? Would he if that ghost was someone very dear to him? ONESHOT


**Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan. Be glad that I don't.**

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The Ghost

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"No... Hattori..."

The large body slumped against him, their blood mingling through the shared bullet. At the last second, Hattori had dived in front of him. But it hadn't worked. And now they would both die. Conan crawled out from under his human shield, keeping a hand on the blood flowing from his stomach. "Hattori. Hattori, answer me."

"Kudo..." The Osakan's eyes were barely open, and he was clearly having trouble breathing. Conan placed his free hand on the entry wound, the blood making everything slippery. There was just so much of it, too much of it.

"Hattori... stay with me. You've got to stay with me," Conan insisted, panicking. He could feel his own life force trickling away, but that was nothing compared to watching it happen to someone else.

"S'okay," he slurred, and his eyelids slid shut. The blood flowed freely, intermingling until they must have both been covered with equal amounts of each other's.

"Hattori... You can't..." Conan said, his voice weak. His strength gave way and he fell to the floor next to him. "You can't..."

"S'all right..." Heiji said, voice trailing off, head lolling to the side.

Conan took deep shuddering breaths. "You can't," he whispered, and then joined his friend in slumber.

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He was in the morgue. Oh god he was in the morgue. And it was all his fault. If it wasn't for him, he'd still be in Osaka solving cases and arguing with Kazuha. Not here. Not in the morgue, with a sheet pulled up over his body.

Ran wouldn't stop hugging him. She wouldn't stop hugging him and she wouldn't stop crying. He hadn't seen Kazuha. He'd heard she'd gone back to Osaka.

It was a senseless sacrifice. The bullet still hit him. He was an idiot, idiot, idiot. He was making people cry. He was making him cry. In the deep hours of night, when the hospital is lonely, he cries. When he gets a reprieve from the nightmares that replay the scene over and over, he cries.

His parents came and left without him ever seeing them. Not that he blamed them. They didn't want to see the boy that killed their son. It was his fault. It was all his fault.

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After that, things changed. He recovered, as best he could. He attended the funeral with everyone else. He reached for his phone to call him, and his hand stopped halfway. Back alleys became his new best friend, where he could mourn in privacy. He carried on.

That wasn't all that changed. Little things suddenly became bigger. The clues were getting easier to find. Investigating the sound of a falling object would reveal both the fallen object and the murder weapon. He could feel eyes on him, eyes that he couldn't see. He started running into the Black Organization more often. By chance or by design, he didn't care to guess. He started to keep his ears open for falling objects. They started to lead him to juicy clues.

A year later, he found himself in Osaka. After the memorial, he found himself wandering the city for the entire day. After it began to grow dark, a series of incessant bangs of objects hitting each other led him to Kazuha crossing the street just as a speeder was rounding the corner. Here she was, and there Conan was, pushing her out of the way. They hadn't talked at the memorial, or the funeral for that matter. But they talked then, about ghosts.

The clues continued to rack up in untold numbers. And finally, one day, he did it. Finally, one day, he stared through the bars of a cell at the one person he hated more than anyone else in the world. And finally, one day, he did it with his own eyes. And when a loose tile fell out of the ceiling and got Gin right on the head, he smiled. "Revenge," he muttered.

Ran had been disappointed at first that he was going to leave again so soon, but when he told her where she stopped arguing. Besides, it was only for a day, maybe not even that.

"Thank you," he said, heartfelt, kneeling at a grave. "Thank you for everything." And then he stood up and walked away.

_You're welcome._

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Um... as to whether Heiji was killed by the B.O. or just some random guy with a gun is completely up to you.


End file.
